Rens Feenstra Wins WPT Amsterdam Main Event

With the World Poker Tour (WPT) Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown taking place last week and drawing one of the biggest crowds in Tour history, it was easy to forget that there was another WPT event going on across the pond: WPT Amsterdam. The €3,000 + €300 Main Event drew 207 entrants, generating a prize pool of nearly €600,000. Home town hero (well, home country hero) Rens Feenstra won WPT Amsterdam, cashing for $192,335 (converted from Euros).

The win put Feenstra over the $1 million mark for lifetime live tournament earnings. This was his first World Poker Tour title, but he was quite familiar with tournament end-game situations, as he has a number of tournament wins, including two others in the six-figure range.

Feenstra was the overwhelming chip leader going into the six-handed final table, so it certainly appeared that he was destined for at least the top two. With 2.949 million chips, he nearly as many chips as the other five players had combined. His closest competitor, Ema Zajmovic, had just 793,000 chips.

Zajmovic actually took a big chunk of Feenstra’s chips right from the jump, doubling through him to escalate her stack to 1.742 million. And within a few orbits, she had grabbed the chip lead. In fact, what looked like a cruise for Feenstra turned into quite the competition, as by the 48th hand, he was down to fourth place. It was as tight match, though, with the spread between first and fourth being only about 300,000 chips.

Feenstra was close to gone by Hand 100, falling to 325,000 chips, but he doubled to stay alive while Zajmovic was rolling. He managed to double through Zajmovic to get his stack into “I need to be taken seriously again” territory and eventually it was the two of them heads-up for the title, Zajmovic holding a 3.910 million to 2.135 million chip lead.

Within 20 hands, Feenstra had wrestled back the lead and was finally above the mark where he began the final table (which shows how huge his lead was). Zajmovic took the lead right back and so the see-saw began. Both players kept tilting the table, but neither could pull away. Neither could, that is, until Zajmovic doubled-up on Hand 213 of the final table to grow her stack to 5.310 million chips, leaving Feenstra under a million.

But you know Feenstra won, so forget all that “pulling away” business. Within a few hands, he had doubled-up twice to take about a 2-to-1 lead. But Zajmovic herself then found a double and again the lead went back to her. Back and forth they went.

The most significant hand was Hand 235, when both players made a straight on the turn, so all the chips got in the middle. Feenstra’s straight was better, though, and he zoomed up to 5.310 million to Zajmovic’s 915,000.

A few hands later, Feenstra sealed the deal, his K-9 out-kicking Zajmovic’s K-4, denying his opponent her second WPT title.